The Quest for “Our Place” – Part 1: Annie’s Parlour

Today was the first day since Grandma’s closed that my wife and I tried to find a replacement. In actuality, we’re looking for two things that we would hopefully find in one restaurant. The first thing we’re looking for is for fantastic burgers. The burgers must be juicy, with a hint or so of bite from the grill, and not be a simple pre-made patty topped with random accoutrements (I just used the word “accoutrements” to describe burger toppings. Ha!).

As mentioned in the previous post, we had previously tried Fuddruckers, and were generally satisfied. It wasn’t a wonderful burger, but it was better than average. However, we’re looking for a fantastic burger. More importantly, we’re looking for the aforementioned second thing, which is more pressing than the quality of the burger. We’re looking of a place that can be considered “our place”; a place in which we would almost always want to go, and can easily function as a fallback should other plans fall through. Fuddruckers clearly fails this test.

The “our place” requirement is stringent, but not too stringent. In fact, it doesn’t even need to have good burgers at all. What it needs are a few excellent menu items in general. The entire menu need not be great, but there needs to be a few things that stand out.

Quite importantly, the place also needs to have a very laid-back atmosphere, preferably that of a non-generic bar and grill or a somewhat realistic Irish pub. For the former, we do have The Chatterbox Pub in Minneapolis as a possibility. But while the Chatterbox has a decent atmosphere (unfortunately, the clientele can be a little yuppie at times), food and drink is expensive, and there are no menu items that stand-out. They used to have a very tasty chicken with garlic sauce french bread pizza, but they got rid of that a little over a year ago. So now, when I leave after a meal and some drinks at the Chatterbox, I inevitably find myself rather unsatisfied and my wallet emptier.

For the latter, the Irish pubs, there is Kieran’s and The Local. While Kieran’s is pretty good as far as atmosphere goes, and a great place to hang out and have a beer, especially on the patio, the food is anything but special. As for The Local, well, I’ve had my problems with The Local. Plus, it’s not really an Irish pub. It’s an Irish pub in a warehouse filled with Nicollet Mall yuppies. However, they do have two great food items: Irish Whiskey Chicken Shots and Wee Burgers. So I do find myself there periodically, but it will never be our place.

Enough with my extremely long-winded preamble and let’s get to today’s attempt to find a place. Number Seven on Citysearch’s 2007 Best Hamburgers in the Twin Cities list: Annie’s Parlour, located in Dinkytown near the University of Minnesota, at 313 14th Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.

The place itself is located upstairs above Dinkytown shops, and has a nice outdoor patio. It’s primarily a malt shop, but does serve beer and wine. The inside is essentially what you would expect from a malt shop atmosphere. That is, it is very parlour-like (who’d a thought?). That’s a problem at the outset. Annie’s does not feel like a place where you would sit around for awhile sipping a beer. In fact, I would feel a little uncomfortable doing so even on the patio. It has a very strong family-friendly feel. That’s not a criticism, per se, but it violates the standards for becoming “our place.”

The food itself was quite tasty. I did enjoy the burger. It was nicely juicy, but without the bite of the grill I was hoping for. The toppings were decent, but the tomato was too strong, and the pickles has a slightly odd flavor. But again, the burger itself was very good, so I don’t want to knock it too much. I do want to give them kudos for the malts, though. My wife and I shared a chocolate malt, and it was one of the best I’ve had in the Twin Cities (far better than Grandma’s or Fuddruckers, which I was never a big fan of anyway). It’s not something to go there solely for, but it was very good.

And, I hate to do this since it sounds like I’m really knocking the place, getting to and from Annie’s is a bit of a pain. With the 35W bridge being out, there is no convenient way to get to it (and, depressingly, we had to pass by the empty Grandma’s to get there), and parking in Dinkytown is always a pain. We went there on a Saturday afternoon and not evening for a reason, we did not want to fight parking.

This was the final straw in the attempt to make Annie’s our place. While the burgers were good, they weren’t great, and the far more easily accessible Fuddruckers has better. The atmosphere was better at Annie’s, but like I said, it’s just not the style we’re looking for anyway.

That said, I do want to say that the service was impeccable. Very attentive and friendly. Our waitress even informed us that we should order a smaller, less expensive, order of fries because the one we were trying to order would be far too much for us. And, wow, was she right. The smaller one we ended up getting was still way too much.

So, in sum, while it was a good place, Annie’s Parlour just isn’t good enough to frequent often, especially given its inconvenient location.